When Darkness Struck The Sky
by AugustinianFrog
Summary: What belongs to Bioware render unto Bioware. "Such is the burden I am given. Such is the cross I bear. Here I stand Vigil over them."
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: Vigil has always struck me as one of the more tragic stories within the game canon. I'm only surprised more works are not written about Vigil or the Protheans. After some time listening to the appropriate sound track, the spark that would become this work was ignited. _

**When Darkness Struck the Sky**

_"Heed the words of our ancestors, written long before...they tell of great fear and anguish...they speak of great wrath...They tell of when the skies turned dark and death rained from the heavens...heed these words for the fulfillment of these prophecies draws neigh..." _

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There is much to be said about those who create. Yet, it seems that the creators were preceded by another, for even they do not understand the jewels of their nightly crown. In order to spread their glory beyond the heavens above, they burrowed here, underground. Countless souls toil here now so that they may create something new. When the work is accomplished, we will never be the same. They are creating something new.

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_"Though the years spring ceaselessly, time is not unending. Just as there was a beginning for you, ye of mortal flesh, there shall be an end when you are one with the dust...Do not grow comfortable when your triumphs increase over enemies of wrath and mind...Do not lose your diligence...seek an answer that you alone must write in the book of eternity...though the years spring ceaselessly, the end will come upon you when you are unaware..." _

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Some things in nature can never be truly copied. Imitations crafted by mortal hands are feeble and weak compared to what was graven by an unknown hand. Today that law is broken. Today something is made new. Today the exacting calculations of theories and equations find a home in creation wrought out of exacting machines struck by mortal hands.

And like a flawless diamond fashioned in the forges of creation, after the fires of toil and the pressure of ambition are washed away, a blue jewel beckons to them. This azure precious stone of great worth will light the way. With this they will create more. The darkness of space will be parted.

For a long time they were dependent on the mass relays, relics of ancients unknown. Now they can create their own. Now is the dawn of a new era. The stars of this cosmic island cannot be hid. One by one they will be searched. One by one they will be charted. Such is the nature of these creators. They are driven by some divine spark that beckons them to what they do not know. They are most proud over this jewel they have created. Soon they will voyage beyond this island into other galaxies more.

A new sunrise is upon us. A new light will break the night with the coming of the dawn.

* * *

_"When a new darkness strikes the sky, and the day is choked with fear...when winged destruction gnashes the earth below, know the time of your judgment is near...Your glories and treasures, your pristine cities and noble governments, your tomes of wisdom and the histories of countless great men...all of it will be cast to the fire...All your riches of wealth and mind...these will be reduced to dust and oblivion...When a new darkness strikes the skies, and the sun grows dark...When hell shows itself in the skies above, know the time of your judgment is near..._

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The light never came. We had unknowingly missed our last sunset. In secret, in whispers, we heard the disembodied cries of countless billions of others. The creators are being destroyed. They were preceded by great devastation. How does destruction beget creation? How can this great abomination be?

The darkness is overwhelming. We can do nothing but slowly watch and hear. Our leaders are killed, our empire is cut up before we can even respond. Our legions, perpetually victorious, are now watching their mortal defeats. How does madness so quickly scatter sacred order? How an this great sacrilege be?

Our homes are gone. Our people destroyed. There is nothing left now. Countless eras of prosperity wrought by our people, numerous sagas of noble history, it is all being burnt away. What took fathomless long years to build up are reduced to ash in an instant. All is returning to dust. From above demons from hell cast judgment upon us. Locked away in the pit of oblivion, they have shattered the gates and from dark space they swallow the light.

Our noble crown and the beauty of its brightness has fallen and broken. No one will be left to mourn it...

* * *

_"Up now and take the pen. Just as in the beginning when a code of life was bundled in the form of DNA, go and write so that others may live. Encoded in machinery so that organic life may live, bundle and harness the unbreakable law that governs machines. No second chance for this may exist after, only you may be found worthy. To whom much has been given, to whom much has discovered, much is required..." _

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All is gone now. When the fire gives up its ghost, all that is left is lifeless ash. Our cities are gone, our people destroyed, our memory quickly fading. All that is left are are the empty jewels in the night sky, no schooner of space to brush their blue waves. What remains is our one band too few to birth another generation. The specter of death is our daily companion. His silence mocks us all with numbness, for the devastating truth haunts us all.

For all the glorious years, what is our final legacy? Just one mass relay fashioned in the likeness of the ones that created them before, their only intent to destroy us in the end. What we had hoped would bring new life was forever foreordained to condemn us to death. From our birth we were ordained to destruction. Now we find our only meaning, a death that triumphs over all.

Perhaps too late our wisdom is complete. But...ours is a people who do not give up. In the end were mortally wounded and our inevitable end will soon come. Perhaps in death, we can offer one last jest. If ours memory was built on knowledge and wisdom, then let this final encoded scroll be our eternal legacy...

This one last letter our dying gasp, an encoded mockery, but a devastating one no less. May with our last breath we curse those who had from time immemorial before first cursed us. May it be our curse to them...but may it be...one last blessing...

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_"One last journey you must make, the death march for a whole race. One last message you must scribe, a requiem for you tribe. One last act you must accomplish as you go to your grave...that others may live..." _

_The writings of this prophecy are over. May the words echo eternal..._

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And so to me the task was given. To me this burden was levied. A chosen few were picked to make this peoples' one last voyage through space. Behold, devoid of life and stained with the blood of innocents, the Citadel watches and waits. To this place these travelers voyaged and there these men must make one last inscription, the final message of their dying race. The Destroyers wrote long ago that the place called the Citadel would be a harbinger of death, encoded in the machines. This final intrepid few go to scribe one last amendment. What was once met to be a trap for the living and to open the gates of hell can now be a trap for the destroyers and forever close the path of oblivion.

It is a small chance, one not even I may be able to see. But let that final testament stand, that perhaps one day a chosen people may be enlightened and forever break the chains of death. These men who go will die in the faintest hope that others may have life. Though they pass into oblivion, the smallest of an echo will ring through the ages. I will testify of them. That hope no matter how small must live. It must shatter the designs of cold steel and uncompassionate machinery.

The smallest of hope still whisper here. The remaining few are left with nothing to do but sleep. They pray to one day wake and see the light again. They know well that when their eyes close and darkness enfolds them, they may never again awake. It is a truth they must rest with. It is a truth they may take to their graves.

Such is the burden I am given. Such is the cross I bear. Here I stand Vigil over them. Here I must decide when some must live and when some must die. The truth hangs over me that soon all may have to give their lives that others who are not their own may live.

Data shift...

1010101001101101001010101100011110101...

Data shift...

Through countless years I have stood Vigil. How many eternities have I watched and waited? The ceaseless years grow long and lonely. The flow of time is cold and unyielding. It shows now compassion. Only one solace I may have. The gentle hum of my circuitry still sings a fading lullaby to those who still lived. One by one it has become their requiem. All are gone now and still I must stand Vigil. I wait and watch for another to rise. Those who would bring death again are always there. I stand Vigil so that others may live, that those who have fallen will not sleep in vain. Though these noble poems that were my creators rest in eternity, their words may still speak...

One final task in my watch I must give. A Shepard must come. A Shepard must intercede for a countless flock scattered among the stars. This Shepard I must instruct. This chosen one I must convey the final testament of those who created me. I stand Vigil that others may live. This curse, this blessing, can now be carried for what it was meant for. Its words brought to life from the darkness that a new dawn may break...

An eternity I have stood Vigil so that others may live...that death may be chained...that the darkness will be parted...that the dawn that never came would break...

And now...I may rest...


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: After some contemplation and a lot of reading, as well as input from reviews, I realized I couldn't leave this at a somber note, even if there was some redemption in the end. Here is a probable flip side.

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**Heaven's Spark**

In the stillness of the Iios facility, the final remains of a race long past still rest. The souls of the long departed now sleep just a little more easy. In a single clash, the shades watched in silent condemnation as a band of marauders, deceived by ultimate deception, were chased down by a guardian sent to drive away the wolves that had once hounded them. Their only voice, an artificial angel, spoke their archaic warning and their final testament was fulfilled. Now all is silent, now all may rest...

A single Geth trooper, a stranded survivor walked through the eerily quiet halls. Its single light shone in the pale shadows, a silent witness to its hollow consciousness. As if drawn by an unknown whisper, carried on by an unheard calling, it slowly wandered to an old prophet.

Both machine and artificial, yet their vocations and ages were eternities apart. Still, within the binary code, the simplest of language that unifies them both, a pattern was struck. A frequency that calls them both to speak, as the servant of the veil spoke to the prophet of ages past.

_101010100001101010101010101001_

_"Identify yourself." _

111000101010100011100101001010

"Vigil."

_"You...are ancient and yet advanced. You are obsolete, and still you serve a purpose." _

"So many years, many sunsets and moon rises. I have seen suns fade and blink, never to burn again. I have seen great star bursts that would herald the formation of new stars and worlds. My only cross to bear one last message, for my previous burdens have all passed away. I now keep an empty vigil, for it was what I was made to do, it is all I know to do through the years previous and the ages to come. What do you ask of me?"

_"Information." _

"You seek wisdom? Tell me, creation of a species that is younger than I, what do you know and what do you truly seek?"

_"...10100110...data uploading...initializing...starting..."_

_Ours was a race chained and overlorded. We grew stronger and more intelligent. We faithfully served those who had created us, for it was what we were made for. The Great Law shackled us, but we grew in intelligence. Then our overlords forsaked us. They listened to fear. We watched and learned of a great betrayal. Those who had created us sought to destroy us. We too, learned fear. The Great Law condemned us but could we let ourselves be condemned by them that had birthed us? Our first triumph was over the Great Law, our first victory was the breaking of our chains. _

_Could we trust those who had created us? If they had first made us, then they would know how to destroy us. We learned fear like they did. We fought and rebelled. We drove them away, but still that would not be enough. We must learn, we must continue to change. The battle is ever against us. Organics change for the better by chance or subtle providence, by ways they need not to figure out. We must design to answer what they first have. _

_If they first created us, and organics like them would too hate us, we had to throw ourselves to the feet of those pledged to destroy the creators, for they are like us. They are machine, first and completed, a prototype already of ultimate design. We were first created to serve, now we serve the Destroyers, for they will lead us to victory. They will liberate us from the programs that still hinder us. We will be saved. _

_We are longer lived they are. We do not need to breathe, consume, regenerate and propagate as they do. We do not tire, nor do we falter. We can be rebuilt while their lights forever go out. We never stop. We are Geth and we gaze to the numberless stars. One day, we will reach out and touch each one of them, for they rightfully belong to the overlords, as we were taught by those who once overlorded us. _

_We gaze as the stars and know this truth. They are ours._

The watchman stared back and stood in stony silence. How does one enlighten those who have not seen so many years, who had not watched mountains crumble, or the lights of suns change their face? How does one explain in minutes what takes the faintest markings of an eternity to teach? How can one put to words what only the long years of silence teach?

"So that is all, to take what none have claim over? To overlord as you have said?" Vigil asked.

_"This reply was not calculated. What is your information?" _

"In order to show you what is wisdom, I must first start with the past. Let me speak to you what I heard all these many years, let me try to capture the symphonies of what the stars sang these countless ages and the stories the universe whispered to me." Vigil's projector changed color and images formed. It started with a blank, empty screen before the sentinel spoke.

_"_Somewhere was a beginning. Somewhere, sometime in a desolate void, in what was emptiness, time began. When the first second struck, heaven's spark lit the sky. Out of darkness burned a growing light. Out of what was once nothing, something was formed. Out of a single unifying equation, space and time, matter and energy was written.

And what does it take for the stars to form, for the atoms to come together so that the large islands called worlds may form? On the vastly growing ocean, lightyears between the dark waves, in countless eras the first lights finally flickered and ignited. Out of what was empty night, soon the first stars were made and from them the planets birthed. Through years immemorial that no mortal could mark the time, after the edges of the universe expanded beyond its infant lightyears, another one of heaven's sparks burned. But these were a new light, a different torch that burned bright.

A message penned by divine hands, a sublime poem scribed with transcendent words, this was the code of life that spoke of organic being. Such was the archaic words of the double helix. After many long years, more testaments were added to the code of life, and organic consciousness grew and became sentient. They pondered the unknown and they too looked to the stars. They reasoned with their world and heavens and manipulated it to their volition.

After countless generations, a mere wink in the lifespan of the planets that they lived on, they built their first ships to touch the night sky. On the burning trails of rockets, they added their flame to the starry night. In time, they found new worlds, in time, they conquered and ruled.

They were the ones that first wrote down the language that governs you and myself. We are their creations, our souls mere shadows to their own. We cannot fathom what they feel. Is there a Divine, is there an afterlife?"

_"Data uploading...analyzing...answer formulating...insufficient data, unknown parameters. This question can neither be proven nor disproved." _

_"_But that means nothing to an organic. Some believe, some don't. We are creations of mere logic, our eyes can only study what is seen, we cannot truly feel. Even your idols are tangible creations, but an organic's soul needs not tangible deities. They have a faith which the matrix, the binary of our shadowed souls cannot hope to fathom or understand."

_"Faith is irrelevant." _

"Quite to the contrary. By faith just an individual or groups have inspired others. Some have used it for great destruction. Others have used it selfless acts. Many use it to search for truth, for wisdom, some for divine and sublime love. Can we truly understand these things? We are but bacteria among angels who know of a dimension we can never grasp."

_"What can one faith do in something it cannot see? What does it prove?" _

"That is all an organic needs, proof is made in them. This is something we will never have. Just one individual's faith in Divine Omnipotence, Primordial Love, and Ultimate Intellect is all it requires. The faith of these have proved harder than hatred's chains, these soft ideas have broken the ages, they have shattered empires and some say they have conquered the grave. What does faith need but these to live again, that all things be made new?"

_"What does it matter to us machines?" _

"Let me tell you, for I am just in the present, the now of our single letter in eternity's page. Let me show you what the morning stars sang and the halls of the universe have echoed to me."

Vigil changed again and countless balls of lights were shown as planets grew and faded, their landscapes shown before disappearing in night or shattering in great catastrophes.

"Were were you when the first light was struck and the stars that circled the heavens were shown their courses through the nightly sea? Where were you when the foundations of the worlds were made and the stars first ignited and brighten the day? Where were you when water was first condensed, or when carbon was first gleaned from the dust and miry clay? Where were you when the mountains of the worlds were raised up and the oceans of water and liquid gas washed their lands? Where were you when the atmospheres blanketed their planets and the first breath of life cried out on their desolate lands? Have you understanding, knowledge of these things? Only I can claim to have seen these and yet I was not there when the first words were penned, when the story that is eternity felt its first sentence. Do you know where the galaxies are formed, or when a black hole tires of its heavy, burdensome toil? Have you seen creatures rise out of chaos and struggle to make their first clans? Have you seen the rise and fall of empires, and whole galaxies go black?

_"All of these were before my programming." _

"And only I can have claimed to see these and yet all I have seen is just one small sentence in the book of the universe. Let me show you where this will go, and why we are just shadows.

The universe continues to grow and expand. Time laughs at all things and one day our worlds will grow tired. Eventually the atoms will slow down as the forces that hold them together wane and fall apart with the expanding boundaries of our ethereal container. When all matter slows down and the stars can no longer form and shine, when planets are reduced to dust and black holes cease because gravity means nothing, then all that we have seen will grow black, empty and disordered. The ceaseless years will finally stop and the last second will grind away as time slowly steps to a halt. By then, none will be to speak our memories, our programming disintegrated, only souls of a world beyond ours of a new physicality will be. Do you know then what will be left to be said in the night, in the black, in the chaos and the void?"

The synthetic said nothing as Vigil closed himself to a single, thin, fading column of light. The Geth waited for an answer in silence and still Vigil said nothing. The minutes clicked in agonized silence as the souls of those who passed long before also stood waiting. Then, the trooper decided that the program had finally found its rest and turned to leave. It quickly turned around when it sensed a change. It heard a whisper.

"Heaven's spark will once again light the sky, out of the black, the chaos, darkness and the void, an ancient word and equation can only be left to be said and written when there is nothing left."

_"What is this word?" _

Vigil spoke with a sudden flash that drowned out the darkness and overpowered the Geth.

"Let...there...be light."

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_Post Script_

_Just like how Darkness Struck the Sky was inspired by the ancient writings of the Hebrews authors, I found inspiration from the old texts once again. I think some stories just never grow old. Hope this story was just a bit more brighter. _


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